Master Plan of tourism

Since its beginnings in the 1960s, the development of Istrian tourism occurred more or less randomly. It was marked by the offer based on the sun and the sea as products. Hotels and tourist settlements were constructed with 500 and even as many as 1.500 beds/places with the objective of achieving tourism characterized by big numbers realised in three to four months of tourism season. Mass tourism, predominant in Istria, the rest of Croatia, and in the entire Mediterranean only occasionally offered cultural contents. It seldom used natural advantages as a tourist attraction, and it mainly lacked attractive entertainment, shopping facilities, and clearly defined recreation zones. Despite the fact that the last decade witnessed attempts of shaping some new segments of offer (such as agritourism and vacations in the countryside, wine and bike paths in the interior of Istria etc.), the result of such development is the actual situation in which the guest is offered many tourist destinations with similar average contents, which is a very logical answer to the market demand and its rules of behaviour.

The only developmental way out of the used product and out of the type of tourism that is definitely out on the market is a diversification of the offer of Istrian tourist destinations towards natural and acquired predispositions, and, accordingly, a faster development of new products looking for their targeted clients on the market. Precisely for this reason, the Master Plan recognizes diversities of individual units - clusters, whose particular features will be shaped into new products that need to be competitive on the market and mutually complimentary. A series of research, analyses, polls, discussions, and workshops created outlines of Istrian new future in six coastal clusters and in the cluster of the Istrian interior. In the area of Pula and Medulin, the co-signer of the elaboration of Master Plan is only Arenaturist, and not local tourist communities, so that the definition of this cluster has been only partially completed.

The Brijuni Archipelago is a special cluster designed for the development of elite tourism. The Master Plan contains Master Plans for each individual cluster, and then, finally, the Master plan for the development of tourism for the entire Istrian area.